First tourny advice..

Hi everyone

Just posted a thread in the FB armies forum, but i thought i'd post something like it aswell here.
Im entering my first tournament next week, and i'd like to hear if any of you guys have any helpful tips and tricks or advices - both on subjects considering the game itself, but also offgame advice would be helpful.

I can help a bit. I already posted on your general thread, but here are some specific tricks for the Empire. Some of these may seem a bit "cheesy", but all the stuff about being a "good sport" was covered in the other thread...

[In my area] Empire aren't considered a tournament army.I've seen players use this as an advantage. Few opponents really know what Empire units are really capable of, and tend to underestimate them. Don't blatantly lie about rules, but you can always say things like "This halberdier setup I'm running has bounced Blood Knights before". Now that opponent is looking at the unit and wondering to themselves, Really? Maybe sending my Swordmasters in against those guys is a bad idea.
I've also talked the army down, and acted very relaxed and friendly, and gotten my opponent to let their guard down.

Know thy Equalizers
Learn all of the nasty little rules that form the ins-and-outs of Warhammer. Check out the FAQs and print them to have them on hand. Most players at tournaments will take very, very well built lists that are meant to maximize killing power. A VC player might include a Blood Knights unit, just because he knows that it's usually "point and shoot" destruction. But what he doesn't know, is that he has to align himself against the nearest skirmisher. You can use a cheap regiment of Archers, which he thinks he'll blow through and overrun into your Greatswords, to pull him way off course.
The manager at my shop has been wargaming for decades, and has been featured in WD and all sorts of other magazines and publications. He's like the bhudist-monk of wargaming. You can build him the worst list that you think possible, and play him with your tournament army, and he'll find a way to give you your money's worth every time, if not beat you outright. He can do this, because he knows every nasty little trick in the book.

Tricks include:
skirmishers are the best redirectors- whenever an enemy charges them, the closest skirmisher counts as the entire unit. He wheels to align with that model alone, and then the rest of the skirmishers are pulled in from there.

charges are worked out in the order in which they are declared- you can remind players of this after they decide that they want to charge your parent unit, and then charge your detachment so that it can't react. Not true! They declared against the parent first, so you can still declare the detachment's reaction to that charge, before declaring it's reaction to the second charge (with the exception of Counter Charge! followed by Flee).

All guess-range weapons are declared first, and all guesses made simultaneously before measuring- this is less of a trick for you, and more of a trick for your enemy. Don't fall into this trap. Always guess for everything, and then start measuring.
A trick for you though, is to mark down your guesses and the amount by which you overshot. There is a rule against "pre-measuring", but there is no rule against recording measurements once they are made. If you are shooting at an enemy Cannon, and you guess 37", and you measure it out and find that you over-estimated by 5", you can make a note somewhere that might read:
Cannon A to cannon C - 32"

Post up your list here for us, and I/we will comment on it in the armylist section. Post a link to it here (this pretty much ensures I'll see it, since when I log in, I check my existing posts first)

Remember- never say the words "anything but a one" or "as long as I don't misfire". It's bad luck.

Know thy Equalizers A VC player might include a Blood Knights unit, just because he knows that it's usually "point and shoot" destruction. But what he doesn't know, is that he has to align himself against the nearest skirmisher. You can use a cheap regiment of Archers, which he thinks he'll blow through and overrun into your Greatswords, to pull him way off course.
The manager at my shop has been wargaming for decades, and has been featured in WD and all sorts of other magazines and publications. He's like the bhudist-monk of wargaming. You can build him the worst list that you think possible, and play him with your tournament army, and he'll find a way to give you your money's worth every time, if not beat you outright. He can do this, because he knows every nasty little trick in the book.

Tricks include:
skirmishers are the best redirectors- whenever an enemy charges them, the closest skirmisher counts as the entire unit. He wheels to align with that model alone, and then the rest of the skirmishers are pulled in from there.

I am pretty sure the redirecting charges with your skirmisher only applies to when the skirmisher flees. If the skirmisher doesn't flee the charging unit just moves into base contact, it does not have to necessarily realign itself to the skirmishers base.

Shake hands with your opponents before the game, be sporting and all that. It's nice to be nice and you don't wanna be marked low on your Sportsmanship scores, do you?

I'd also do as much research on other armies as you can, especially ones that are winning lots of tournaments. If you're able to borrow a few Army Books then do so, a few evenings of swotting up could help swing things your way. Looking round all the army subforums on here would be good too, looking at common builds.

I'd also print off all FAQ and Errata .pdfs floating around.

Now is the time for any last minute basing and varnishing. You don't want to pull an all-nighter on the night before the tournament.

Movement trays. Speeds the game up which keeps opponents happy.

When your opponent deploys his army have a good look at how he has deploy them. Look from different angles, see if you can work out his plan from his set-up and any weaknesses you can exploit.

The game can be won in the deployment phase.
Have throw-away/surplus units to deploy first.
Make sure your warmachines have good fields of fire.
Make good use of the terrain (hills to project ranged units / woods to protect combat units)

Another great thing to do is have your army set up on a display board (tray, piece of wood, shallow box) and take your army off the table before you deploy. Try and keep your matchup from seeing it when he arrives at the table, put it in chair or on the floor under the table. Someone did this in a match with me once and I have done it ever since. This way they have no idea what to expect during deployment. For example: If they see you have a Stank and 2 units of knights they will be deploying with with those expectations in mind.